


A Marriage of Three

by navaan



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Girl Saves Boy, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Multi, Non-Sexual Intimacy, OT3, POV Female Character, POV Male Character, Polyamory, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-07 07:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12836247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: Things don't go according to plan and Holmes gets hurt protecting Mary





	A Marriage of Three

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tripleransom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tripleransom/gifts).



“Don't you dare do this,” she said and she was proud that she sounded exasperated rather than distressed as she helped him along. For his part Holmes was leaning heavily on her. 

“Do this, Mrs Watson?” His laugh was strained, but even in this he decided to be exasperating.

“Dying! Don't you dare die out here and like this. I won't forgive it.” His false mustache with the twirled ends was still clinging to his face and she ripped it off with one hand, quietly enjoying the surprised whelp it drew from his lips.

“I'm beginning to see that Watson taught you nothing about bedside manner.”

She tried not to roll her eyes, then gave in as she stumblingly dragged him along and out of the alley into the main street where people were walking. “I've had no complaints until now.”

He grumbled, but then pushed her into a wall and held her still, while men and women passed them by. He stood tall suddenly, straight like an arrow – or a man who hadn't two minutes ago been shot - and she had no idea where he'd acquired the black top hat that he hadn't been wearing before. His face had taken on a wax like hue and a sheen of sweat was covering it – the only signs of strain.

“Mary, Mary,” he said softly. “Nobody is dying here today. That is the whole point of my being here.”

She frowned. Too many words were on her tongue about how much John had grieved for him when he had come back from Reichenbach without Holmes - _don't you dare do that to him again_ -, or how the blood covering her fingers now hidden under her dark leather gloves – all Sherlock's – was a terrible reminder of how close they were to a dangerous end to this adventure. An adventure she hadn't been involved in until someone had drawn a gun on her and Holmes had stepped in.

Holmes laughed and from the quick narrowing of his eyes, she realized he expected her to play along so she laughed, too, and hid her laugh and thus her face behind a white handkerchief. With a tilt of her head she made sure whoever was watching them wouldn't be able to catch more than a quick glimpse.

She couldn't see whatever it was that Holmes was seeing, but she had learned over time that it was best to trust Holmes and his instincts for trouble and not only because he insisted it was superior skills of observation, but also because she had learned to go with the flow and also because she was starting to pick up on how he perceived the world. It was scary and exhilarating. No wonder John had been drawn in by it. 

They waited for another heartbeat, then Holmes indicated for her to help him along again. 

“We're an easy mark,” she muttered.

“That's why we're taking ourselves off the scene.”

They hadn't made more than two steps when he pushed her towards another ally and used his walking stick to take out an attacker. Mary barely saw the edge of the man's knife, before the thug was down. Holmes sagged against the wall, white as a sheet. “I hope that was the last one,” he said and sounded weaker than before. “I think I counted correctly.”

Of all things, _that_ was what made her realize how dire the situation really was. He held his hand pressed over the wound and blood was staining his jacket now. They needed to be gone from here. They needed John...

A hansom, a coach... She need to get them a coach.

And while she was still thinking this, Holmes was about to go to his knees and she caught him, taking most of his weight with a grunt. 

She was going to get him home.

* * *

His senses were awake before his mind was, but he smelled the nearby fire more than he felt the warmth of it. He was cold and yet too hot. His body was burning with a different fire. The pain from the gunshot wound was unbearable, got worse and a groan slipped from his lips.

“John!” a voice called out and someone got their feet.

Mary. He knew the voice, the worried cadence, and the melody of her quick steps.

He remembered the shot, the ally, the flight, remembered faintly that Mary hadn't been supposed to notice he was there at all, that he'd carefully chosen his disguise to stay out of her way and protect her from the shadows... Someone had been following Watson and his wife for the last week - someone with a grudge. 

The threat of it had brought up memories – Moriarty, Moran, their attempts on Watson and Mary, the loss of the ever alluring and elusive Irene... The grief.

“Stay down,” Watson ordered.

He hadn't even moved. “I'm taking up all the space in this bed,” he said pragmatically. _Their_ bed. Watson's and Mary's. 

He still thought of it that way, although Mary was referring to it as _their_ bed and meant all three of them.

John told him: “Shush, Doctor's orders.”

Mary sat down on the side of the bed and grasped his hand. “You could have told us what you were doing.”

“You _should_ have told us what you were doing,” her husband corrected.

“I could have been wrong,” he said and the wound was throbbing so badly that he dreaded the idea of getting up and making his way back to Baker Street. And it wouldn't be the first time he stayed, but right now he'd rather be away. The intimacy - it still made him uncomfortable.

Relationships had ever been a challenge. It said so much that the endless cat and mouse game he'd involved himself in with Irene was the closest he'd come to a romantic relationship. 

And John. Always John.

And now Mary, who did not let him get away with his antagonism and distancing.

“He's thinking again,” Mary said haughtily, like she was talking about a disobedient child.

“She's right,” John said, “we told you there's no room for you analytic mind in the bedroom.”

“It has its uses,” he countered. “If you'd let me...”

“Later,” John promised. “When you don't look like death personified.” He sat down on his other side, at the same time that Mary chose let herself sink down on the bed to lie at his side, her head resting on his shoulder. 

“You need to learn we're in this together. You don't get to make all the choices.”

His throat was dry and he was sure it was because he was in pain and tired... not because he was touched. Never that.

“All three of us,” John agreed and he, too, sank to the mattress, pushing Sherlock's shoulder carefully to make him move over, closer into Mary. Then Watson stayed there, propped up on an arm, to watch him - and watch Mary as she rested against Sherlock's side. “Is the pain bearable?” 

_It is now_ , he realized. 

A spark of panic remained, but perhaps he was too tired and too exhausted to care right now.

“Bearable, yes.”

“Good,” his lovers said together.

He stayed down, under John's watchful gaze and listing to Mary's breathing and let himself be lulled back into the oblivion of sleep, his overactive mind for once at peace.


End file.
